Falsecast

An archer fish feeding on the Daintree River. It sounded like someone had filled a bicycle pump with water and was firing it into the mangroves. They never mention that in the TV documentaries.

Jellyfish flashing on and off all around me as I waded a beach in the pitch of a Martha's Vineyard night. Winking purple and blue all around, rocking up and down and in and out. Stare long enough at them in the dark and you go dizzy. The popping sound of feeding stripers, and the tickle of a large horseshoe crab crawling over my boot only added to the strangeness. If aliens had kidnapped me at that point I'd have thought, "Well, OK then."

A flying fish flying. Up until then I'd thought that they probably managed to waggle a couple of feet across the surface. But this thing popped out of the water and kept going. Looking back now it's difficult to say exactly how far it flew, but by the time it landed again my jaw had hit the bottom of the boat.

A pike taking a duckling. Well you read about these things but never expect to actually see it. This wasn't a devastating smash and grab with water flying everywhere. Just a smooth roll-over. A big pelvic fin arcing gracefully. Hardly a ripple. You wouldn't even know the duckling had been there. "Wow! Did you see that?" Of course no one else did.